Trigger warning for those with birthdates after 1964: I’m about to drop a Boomer song and a 70’s story on you.
Have you ever experienced a “midnight train moment”?
In their R&B hit, “Midnight Train to Georgia,” Gladys Knight & the Pips tell the story of a man who hoped to make a name for himself in LA. But ended up having to leave it all behind.
He kept dreamin’ that someday he’d be a star,
But he sho’ found out the hard way that dreams don’t always come true.
So he’s pawned all his hopes and he even sold his own car, . . .
Said he’s leavin’ on that midnight train to Georgia.
I love this song. But from the standpoint of fortifying eternal values, it has problems. The Midnight Train to Georgia embodies a kind of faulty thinking towards which we are all prone. We define progress in only one way: Ascent. Constant elevation. Up, up, UP the ladder of dreams we go! Along the way we tie our happiness to our progress. The mere notion of not climbing or, even worse, stepping off the ladder for a time represents sheer lunacy to us. We are, after all, climbers. To cease the ascent introduces questions of identity. We stop being who we think we are.
How Do You Define Progress?
What happens in our soul when, as Gladys sang, we find out “the hard way that dreams don’t always come true”? Where do we turn when our dreams for progress turn into descent–the feelings or experience of failure?
Let’s explore a different way of seeing failure. Failure is ambition denied for a better plan.
God sees progress differently. He’s less interested in us having a star on the ground in Hollywood than in making us lights that shine for his glory. To work in our souls, he occasionally pulls us aside for a little one-on-one time. It may be illness, crisis, an unexpected downsizing, an unfavorable evaluation, loving discipline from God, or a host of other reasons especially chosen for us.
The effect is always the same. We go from running full speed in a well-defined race to unexpectedly standing on the sidelines. And we’re prone to interpret this change as our own failure. We make it all about us. We try to excuse what happened, explaining it away to preserve the appearance of our omnicompetent ascent. In other words, our pride.
God is at work in these moments. He forges the steel to endure through the furnace of denial. Our loving Father composes every “midnight train” episode in our lives, demonstrating his unceasing love by crushing the altars we erect to our own accomplishments.
If you are reading this as a leader, slow down. Make sure you hear this.
God ordains our failures to pierce through pride. Think about where this applies right now. The thud of your leadership hitting rock bottom may actually be the sound of God busting up some idols. God uses failure to reveal the things we treasure more than him.
Can You See the Better Plan?
Failure is always hard. But it becomes an important way God shows us our hearts and reclaims our affection. God loves us so much he will act jealously to remove obstacles that keep us from enjoying him.
He denies our dreams because he has something better.
You see, God thinks nothing of taking our life plan and rewriting it—for our good. Sure, when our plans lie in ruins, we often feel lost and aimless. But God meets us in the wilderness and the waiting. Over time, the better plan emerges. No need to “pawn our hopes or sell our car” (think Gladys!); we just have to see our loss differently and thank God for his wisdom.
The great eighteenth-century evangelist George Whitefield experienced the sting of being sidelined. When Whitefield sustained a head injury, a younger man was called to serve in his place. Upon hearing how this man powerfully served in his absence, Whitefield rejoiced, saying, “Blessed be God that some can speak, though I am laid aside”
Face it. Each one of us is going to be laid aside. It is our collective destiny. Which means feelings of failure await us all.
Redefine failure now, so you are prepared when the “midnight train to Georgia” unexpectedly arrives!
Today’s Tenacious Question
Think over a past plan you made for your life that God changed (the further back the better). What better things did God accomplish in and through you as a result of that change?
Bounce Prayer
Lord, you taught us through your servant James that we should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). Help me to hold my plans loosely and understand my “failures” in terms of your providence, that in all things I may offer up praise to you. Amen.
Photo by Tak Kei Wong on Unsplash
